Bright piercing pure white light from northwest of my home... lighting up my entire home. The light hurt my eyes and my dog immediately started barking and ran to the window we both looked outside and could see nothing.

Not normal at all.  No noise.
I have had a problems with lightning here. So that is what I thought it was but those flashes are usually blue and accompanied by thunder.  Over the years there are black spots on my land perfect circles where the lightning has struck.  In fact over a year ago my car was damaged by EMP and would not run.  A mechanic determined it was EMP damage and the black spots next to the care were photographed and it was covered by insruance.
Over the last 4.5 years I have lived here ther have been huge flashes of lightning but always accompanied by thunder and during stormy skies.
There is haze today and very little wind no storm.